Metrics Every Recruiter Should Follow

Recruitment metrics are defined by Wikimedia as, “a standard set of measurements used to manage and improve the process of hiring candidates into an organization.” In my experience, the bigger the employer, the more important these metrics become in order to manage hiring cycles and talent acquisition. By actively tracking your recruitment efforts you can begin to fine-tune and optimize for efficiency and cost savings. Here’s a look at what you should be tracking and why.

Source of Hire/Applicants

Like most companies, you are most likely posting your jobs in a variety of places online through job boards and aggregators. If you have an ATS, then it should already be tracking how each of these sources are performing. A few years ago the employee review site Glassdoor published its own recruiting metrics in this slideshare which you may find useful. Track your own sources of hire/applicant numbers on a monthly basis in order to optimize your use of job advertising.

Cost per Hire/Applicants

This is perhaps the most important metric to track if you have a budget and need to stick to one. Simply divide the cost spent to advertise your jobs by the number hires and divide by the applicants. I would include the cost of your applicant tracking system (and other technologies) in the equation, as well as things like job fairs, recruiter travel, and marketing materials. By testing your sources you can then fine-tune your recruitment marketing spend in order to maximize ROI. These numbers will be quite useful for forecasting your budget for next year as well.

Time to Hire

Calculating the time it costs to make your hires will be useful in planning ahead. These metrics will give you clarity when your CEO comes and asks “how long will it take to hire 30 new inside sales reps?” If you find that it’s taking too long, you might want to explore alternative interview processes. It may be worthwhile squeezing in an interview every day where you have an hour to spare, rather than trying to optimize your schedule to squeeze every interview into a single day. Time is money, and you don’t want to risk losing valuable candidates due to slow progress.

Acceptance Rates

A rejected offer ultimately becomes a waste of the money and time used to recruit that candidate. While it’s unreasonable to expect that every candidate will be eager to accept your offer, being rejected by a significant amount of candidates can actually be a warning sign regarding the quality of your offer. You might want to review what your competitors are offering, particularly if they’re the ones who are ultimately hiring your top candidates. Be prepared to offer valuable candidates something that the competition cannot.

Turnover Rates

High turnover rates are indicative of a poor talent recruitment system. At this point you should make sure your job description is as accurate as possible without over promising on the duties and benefits. Also revisit your training procedures. It may be that they aren’t being trained properly or for enough time. Entry-level jobs tend to have higher turnover rates, but there are steps you can take to mitigate that through pay, training, and setting expectations up front.

Running a top-tier talent acquisition system does involve a lot of tracking and complicated logistics. In the end, it’s worth the extra oversight to make sure you’re hiring the candidates who will stick with your company for years to come while maximizing your recruitment spend ROI.